Some Idle Marketing Thoughts
Posted On: 2012-09-21
So your building adult websites and galleries so that you can get some traffic from the link lists and TGPs ... and maybe you're even building up your own network of sites so you can encourage people to come back and see more of what you have to offer.
You're not dumb ... you're using calls to action ... you're telling people to 'click here' and 'buy now' because you know that's what really works. Maybe you're even using 'buy now' buttons that have great contrasting colors so that they really stand out from the rest of the stuff on the page.
So how is all that going for you? Are you making lots of sales? Are you making as many sales as you had hoped that you would make? Are you making any sales at all?
If you are doing all those things right then perhaps you're not doing enough to persuade people to buy what you're selling.
Quite a few years ago now ... not long after I was born ... a couple of psychologists in the United States did an experiment to see what would motivate people to take a certain course of action. They used two approaches ... one was the direct one ... 'I have to do this' ... a bit like our 'buy now' 'click here' approach ... tell them what to do and they'll do it.
Well if this research is anything to go by that approach will work ... but not as well as we might think it should work. When the people in the test group were given the bald 'I've got to do this" with the inference being that because the tester had to do something everyone should be nice to him, 60 per cent of those being tested took the course of action that the testers wanted them to take.
However, when the testers tried the same approach but added some persuasive reasons why those being tested should do something the number of those who took the course of action that the testers wanted them to take jumped to over 90 per cent.
So if you were to apply that to our industry perhaps we should be saying 'buy now' or 'click here' because ... and then we give them some very good reason why they should do what we want them to do. And of course the reason should be something that will benefit the person we are asking to take the action.
You don't think that will work? Well the kicker to those results was that it really didn't matter what reason the tester gave ... there just had to be a reason and those being tested would do what the tester wanted them to do. The actual difference between those who were given a valid reason and those who were given a reason that was not valid was just 1 per cent.
So try giving people a reason to click or buy ... and the chances are that they will just so long as you're not asking them to do too much.
Do you use the same approach in every market place?
Recently some of my clients have been coming to me complaining that they just can't get Facebook to work for them. Some of them have worked very hard to build up their business pages and they've managed to pick up quite a few 'likes' along the way but they just can't seem to get any of those friends to buy anything from them
And when we stop and have a look at the way they have approached marketing to these people it's no wonder they're not making any money. A wander through some of their Facebook pages is like looking through the local newspaper ... there's nothing but badly written ads.
Out there in mainstream there are a huge number of businesses that don't seem to understand that people come to Facebook in a totally different frame of mind to what they have when they're looking at the newspaper or the television. On Facebook people want to talk ... they want to be entertained ... they don't want to be made to think and they certainly don't want businesses to drown them in advertising.
There is a form of marketing that works ... and works very well ... in Facebook but it's totally different to what many mainstream businesses are willing to try.
And I wonder if you're like those businesses who seem to think that one size of marketing fits all situations. Have you tried changing your marketing approach with your galleries, free sites and other adult sites or do you simply use the same thing over and over again in the hope that some of it will work?
If you have been trying the same technique over and over again in everything from TGPs to link lists and one-page wonders then perhaps it's time to stop and think about who uses TGPs and who uses link lists. Are they all in the same head-space or are they looking for slightly different things?
Is the marketing you're using working for all those people or should you be trying different approaches for each type of marketing?